Espacio Temporal reopens its doors and is pleased to present ALLUMER, a solo exhibition by the Feel Good Cooperative, a project founded in Rome in 2020 by artist Pauline Curnier Jardin, architect Serena Olcuire and photographer and sex worker Alexandra López. FGC members are a Colombian/Roman group of transgender sex workers. Members vary according to the projects but now its core consists of Alexandra Lopez, Gilda Star and Guiliana Mira.
Feel Good is above all a celebration based on camaraderie, affection and sharing. With humor, playfulness and critcism, Feel Good Cooperative tells stories that explore the deconstruction or destruction of sexual mandates and gender stereotypes, migrant life and colonial legacy, of pleasure and pain.
In the exhibition the space is transformed by a play of light and dark passages, through a floating architecture that takes us from day to night, from penumbra to apparition. Between transparent fabrics and velvets, three atmospheres are defined, three chapters in a nocturnal stroll. A bright, welcoming first space presents the installation Death of the Pope (2023), composed of the film The Day We Saw Him Dead (2023 ) and engravings that capture impressions of the visit to the Vatican, where the collective bid farewell to the late Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI at the funeral viewing of his body in the Basilica Papale di San Pietro. The installation is accompanied by mirrored masks and a trans angel sculpture set into the wall, in a kind of illuminated display case as seen in some European cities.
In a second, more private space, new works created especially for the exhibition can be seen; sculptures and drawings inspired by a visit to the Musée d'Orsay, where Alexandra, Gilda and Giuliana react to works from the museum's collection, such as Edouard Manet's Olympia , or works by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.
In a third space, darker and filtered by the color of this soft architecture, we see Pauline Curnier Jardin's film Fireflies, 2021 , starring the girls from the cooperative. A poetic work of appearance and night, lightning, bodies and luminescence, whose delicate sound creates the soundtrack for the entire exhibition.
In ALLUMER, curtains/architectures separate and reveal the public from the intimate, between veils and velvet our bodies let themselves be touched and discover inner spaces, complex, casual and sensitive.
June 30, 2024
